Posted on 12/20/2009 2:45:47 PM PST by thecodont
One mistake could cost Trina Lee her Christmas.
Things have been tight for the Arizona-based nursing assistant since she got laid off two years ago and suffered some medical problems that have kept her from working full-time.
[...]
Earlier this month, she was feeling temporarily flush because she has prepaid most of her bills and figured the rest of her December income from child support and a part-time job could be spent on Christmas gifts.
So she splurged on a $65 meal with her mom and brother, knowing that it was possible that this one meal could overdraft her checking account.
Debit card transactions like this one require a signature and usually take a couple of days to clear, so Lee monitored every purchase after that, copying her daily bank account activity into a computer file each night to make sure she wasn't stepping over the line.
On Dec. 7, the night before her son's child support payment was due, she breathed a sigh of relief. At 10:45 that night, the dinner charge still hadn't posted and wasn't even listed as pending.
After subtracting every pending payment, she had precisely 16 cents in her checking account. She went to bed imagining that she'd dodged an overdraft because she would get a $156 payment in the morning.
She got a rude awakening.
Before crediting her account for the child support payment, Chase bank not only put through the dinner charge, it also "reordered" every one of her pending transactions, turning one potential overdraft into four.
The mounting overdraft charges of $35 each then triggered two additional overdraft charges for small debit transactions that Lee did that day, before she'd realized that her account had gone into the red.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Unfortunately, she’s dealing with Chase. I’ve had bad experiences with them.
As soon as any loans I have with them are paid off, that’s it. I’ll never do business with them again.
I hate to sound insensitive, but people like her should pay cash for everything, or else not buy it. Trying to “time” when the transaction is going to show up on your account is risky business.
But this sort of evil crap happens thousands of times every day across America as predatory banks purposely reorder account transactions to maximize overdraft fees.
It often happens to those who can least afford it.
I agree with you. People who spend something via debit card should consider the money gone from their account as of that very moment. And if something is supposed to be an automatic deposit (e.g. a paycheck), that money can't get spent until and unless one phones the bank to make sure the money has really been put in the account.
For your reading pleasure, here is another story, but one about credit cards. Seems this elderly lady thought she could ignore the credit card bills if she was no longer using the cards (she still carried a balance).
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/credit-card-issuers-say-ill-see-you-in-court/Content?oid=1532208
Any branch manager can override those overdraft fees, especially reordered ones that cascade. If you are close on your account, call the bank’s manager, let them know that you’re aware of the issue, what steps you’ve taken to ensure that the account is covered, etc. If your most local branch won’t help, call the next one. Keep going until you reach a reasonable manager, and they will handle it.
It is their job to handle customer service and they are empowered to do many things, and a polite phone call can make many things go away.
Never sit around and whine about it - call and ask. Also, ALWAYS, always pick up the business cards from the tellers you do transactions with, as they’ve the direct line to the branch on them, vs the calling center number you’d get if you tried to call otherwise.
And it’s not just overdraft fees - a cascade overdraft like this can put long holds on any deposit made in the future, for up to a year, which is recorded through the FDIC - you might have two accounts at different banks, and have your account at the other bank affected by the overdraft.
The bank wants you as their customer, they make money off of you using your debit card, your account balance, and any fees they can stick you with. You’re a customer, demand customer service, or get a bank that will do it.
banks have to make money somehow. Why do new loans when they can rape existing customers?
As the article said, she purposely overdrafted her account. After that, all bets are off. Banks are not charitable organizations who are supposed to carry their clients.
OK, this has happened to me, Ms. Super-Reponsible. Wells Fargo sucks about this!
I had an automatic payment hit two days before I expected, naturally the afternoon before a deposit. I normally don’t run my account down below 4 or 5 hundred, but for some reason (I forget what) I did this time.
Because I had nickeled-and-dimed my debit card to pieces that morning, I had EIGHT overdraft charges. Before it was all sorted out, it continued to roll downhill and I had three more overdrafts.
All because that automatic debit put me $7.14 over.
I marched into the bank and got them to reverse all but one.
I once made a cash transfer from savings to checking. My mistake? I did it at the bank’s ATM window. The transfer didn’t get credited until the next day. Got four overdraft charges. Went in to see the bank manager. Been at the same bank for thirty years. She explained that the only instant transfer had to be down with a teller. She happily voided all the overdraft charges. I only do transfers inside the bank now. The delay never occurred to me. I just figured, “Hey! Computers. Instantaneous.” Wrong! Keep a few bills at home now too. Just in case!
I marched into the bank and got them to reverse all but one.
Good for you!
Ditto regarding Chase. Bad experiences for sure - avoid at all costs.
“As the article said, she purposely overdrafted her account. “
Yep and she was willing to risk the $35 fee for that.
Reordering all of the prior charges is what she wasn’t counting on. Big banks suck. Stick with smaller, regional banks and the service is better.
These are areas where we NEED the gov’t to intervene - but they're in bed with the banks - and besides, they are too busy trying to take over the country.
Everything - for this entire year - has been put on the back burner, including our troops - while they work 24-7 on the so-called health care bill that won't even take effect until 2014.
You have to know there is something very wrong here. Evil stalks the night.
Yeah those banks are saints!
Why is it the bank’s fault she spent money she didn’t yet have?
That is the right answer (cash only) but it in no way excuses what Chase did here, which is to extract $175 of fees they did not deserve by in essence loaning her $65.
Payback is easy though. Take out a chase credit card, charge up $5k or so and then go BK.
But the right answer is do what Dave Ramsey says and don’t play with snakes.
That is the right answer (cash only) but it in no way excuses what Chase did here, which is to extract $175 of fees they did not deserve by in essence loaning her $65.
Payback is easy though. Take out a chase credit card, charge up $5k or so and then go BK.
But the right answer is do what Dave Ramsey says and don’t play with snakes.
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